a long time during his reign, O’Neill has looked to be the perfect fit for Stoke, the Northern Irishman being provided with the patience required to put everything in place to deliver promotion to the Premier League.
However, despite possessing a talented group of players and being given the licence to shake up his squad in January, Stoke have nose-dived out of the promotion race.
Since the turn of the year, 11 points have been collected from 14 games, the fact that only Reading and Peterborough United possess worse returns highlighting how badly Stoke have been performing.
Their current Championship winless streak stands at eight matches, and Stoke have let slip a lead in five of those games, the latest occurrence at Cardiff City earlier this week.
Although O’Neill can take some positives from his team not conceding more than twice in any of their last 11 outings, he knows that only a miraculous upturn in results will keep him in the Potters dugout.
In sharp contrast, there was a time earlier in the season where Gary Rowett’s Millwall squad appeared to be heading nowhere given a constant standing of mid-table.
That has now changed and as the form team in the division since February 12, the Lions will have total belief that they can now gatecrash the playoff spots.
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Millwall ended Huddersfield Town’s lengthy Championship unbeaten streak on Wednesday, a double from Benik Afobe earning a 2-0 victory at The Den.
While the East Londoners have only netted 10 times in eight matches, they have conceded just twice, their current run of clean sheets standing at five games.
Only Fulham and Bournemouth possess better defensive records this season, and Rowett will recognise that none of their rivals will fancy playing them in the playoffs should they participate in the end-of-season shootout
